correction was there for any misquotation from that Book; it was
a Book not to be lightly paraphrased, but LEARNED AND OBEYED. In
his own Bible there are pencillings that reveal at once the
secret springs of his strange, and to outward seeming, erratic
life. Thus these passages are marked: 'Remember them that are
in bonds, as bound with them.' 'Whoso stoppeth his ear at the
cry of the poor, he also shall cry and shall not be heard.'
'Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker.' 'He that hath
pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.'

Above all passages, perhaps, was this quoted--Isa. lviii. 6: 'Is
not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed
go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy
bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast
out to thy house?' If ever man kept that chivalrous fast before
the Lord it was John Brown.

The last stage in what we may call the long preparation of John
Brown for the prominent labours of his life reveals still further
how the passionate love of the cause of liberty burned as a fire
in the bones of this family. They were attracted by the proposal
of Gerrit Smith, to celebrate the passing of West Indian
Emancipation with the offer of 100,000 acres of his wild land in
the north of New York State for coloured families to settle upon.
Eager for the success of the experiment, Brown and his sons were
prepared to start pioneering in the new region, so as to be near
at hand to encourage and assist the new settlers. Prepared to
choose their location as they deemed the exigencies of the great
cause demanded, they settled at North Elba in what was then a